e always, Mr. Mark, and Mr. Woolston, and we seem to sail along
in company, much as we did the time you first went out a foremast-lad,
and I teached you the difference between a flat-knot and a granny."

"No, no, Bob, everything is not so much changed as you pretend--I am not
changed, in the first place."

"I confess it--_you_ be the same, governor, blow high, or blow low."

"Then Martha is not changed, or nothing worth mentioning. A little more
matronly, perhaps, and not quite as much of a girl as when you first
made her acquaintance; but Martha, nevertheless. And, as for her heart,
I'll answer for it, that is just the colour it was at sixteen."

"Why, yes, governor; 'tis much as you say. Marthy is now the mother of
four children, and that confarms a woman's appearance, depend on't. But,
Marthy is Marthy; and, for that matter, Miss Bridget is Miss Bridget, as
much as one pea is like another. Madam Woolston does full credit to the
climate, governor, and looks more like eighteen than ever."

"My wife enjoys excellent health, Betts; and grateful am I to God that
it is so. But I think all our women have a fresh and sea-air sort of
look, a cheerful freshness about them, that I ascribe to the salt and
the sea-breezes. Then we have mountain air, in addition, on the Peak."

"Ay, ay, sir--I dare say you've got it right, as you do most matters.
Well, governor, I don't know which counts up the fastest in the colony,
children or whales?"

"Both flourish," answered Mark, smiling, "as our reports show. Mr.
Secretary tells me that there were, on the first of the last month,
three hundred and eighteen children in the colony under the age of ten
years; of whom no less than one hundred and ninety-seven are born
here--pure Craterinos, including your children and mine, Betts."

"It's a fine beginning, governor--a most capital start; and, though the
young 'uns can't do much at taking a whale, or securing the ile, just
now, they'll come on in their turns, and be useful when we're in dock as
hulks sir."

"Talking of oil, you must be getting rich, Captain Betts. I hear you
got in another hundred-barrel gentleman last week!"

"Times is altered with me, governor; and times is altered with you, too,
sir, since you and I rafted loam and sea-weed, to raise a few cucumbers,
and squashes, and melons. _Then_, we should have been as happy as
princes to have had a good roof over our heads."

"I trust we are both thankful, where thanks are du